Posted on 01/29/2006 4:43:03 PM PST by Dick Bachert
Just caught a network news segment on how the Chicago government schools – at the alleged urging of parents – are teaching kids there CHINESE, a language having 3 gazillion unique GRAPHIC – as opposed to our 26 alphabetical – characters and 4 or so basic SOUNDS!
They claim they’re doing this so our kids can COMPETE with the Chinese – most of whom are busy learning a much easier language: ENGLISH!!
I think teaching American kids Chinese is wonderful. These kids will then be able to explain why they are ignorant of biology, physics, math, basic science, etc. – IN CHINESE because their local educrats stole time from THOSE vital skills necessary for us to compete with the Europeans and the Chinese – to teach them CHINESE!
Good, maybe they will do better with Chinese than they do with English!
As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn.
I vote we teach them Latin!
This isn't a zero sum game.
I think this is a good idea. Kids do bettr absorbing lanugages than us calcified oldsters.
Chinese kids don't seem to have a problem with the way Chinese works.
I wish someone would have taught me Chinese. Believe me, in the new world coming it will be much more important than Spanish.
I learned French in school.
It's a good thing for us that the Chinese cling to their screwy alphabet. It reduces their efficiency for a lot of things where they could better compete with us.
Talk about an exercise in futility- Spanish is a comparatively simple language and most of the kids in my high school second-year Spanish class could barely speak it at all.
ummm actually English is the hardest language to learn.
English is the ONLY language were you can say EXACTLY what you wish to say.
chinese is hard because of the graphic nature of the written language, but the spoken language is not that hard to learn.
the problem here is that those kids are still learning ENGLISH, which SHOULD be the priority. It's much harder to master.
Arabic would also be a good language to learm to get a syep up in jobs ... also Japanese.
Chinese is taught in 1st grade in many schools in NY.
Dat depend on what kinda English you be talking.
That's just because we can't seem to come to a consensus on how letter combinations sound....
Trough
Through
Haven't you heard? Chinese nannies are THE latest fad for affluent Manhattan families:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1556209/posts
It's Greek to me.
I teach my girls Latin and Greek with a program called "English from the Roots Up"
Yeah, typical American. Wants EVERYBODY to learn English, but G-d forbid our own kids learn a foreign language. Sheesh!
However Chinese tops the list.
I second that! Everything has been going to hell since kids (including me) stopped learning Latin. As a result it's been a lot harder for me to try learning it at this late date.
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